Nasa Orders New Pad For Solid Rocket Tests

October 17, 1986|By James Fisher of The Sentinel Staff

WASHINGTON — NASA has ordered construction of a second solid rocket booster test facility to provide more accurate test firings of the redesigned shuttle boosters, a move that was recommended by an agency advisory group, officials said Thursday.

The second test stand, to be built at the Morton Thiokol booster motor manufacturing plant in Utah, also will give NASA a needed back-up capability if its original test facility is destroyed during a test.

The new test stand will allow engineers to actively simulate the stresses and other conditions experienced by the boosters during launch, providing a more accurate test than the existing stand. The rockets will be fired in a horizontal position.

The National Research Council panel monitoring NASA's booster redesign effort had recommended construction of the new horizontal test facility last week in a letter to NASA administrator James Fletcher.

However, the agency already had been considering that move as part of its decision against firing the boosters in a vertical position.

According to NASA, Morton Thiokol will pay for and own the base of the test stand. NASA will own the attachable test equipment, which could be removed and used elsewhere later.

The test stand may cost $10 million or more to build, but the exact figure will not be known until NASA's specifications are fully reviewed by Morton Thiokol, said company spokesman Rocky Raab.

Estimates of NASA's costs for test equipment range between $14 million and $16 million.

Ground will be broken for the new test stand within months, but it likely will not be completed for up to a year or more, Raab said.